>>"I find quantum mechanics to be an inadequate justification for free will, largely because the indeterminacy of quantum events factors out at the macroscopic level."

This is exactly what I was trying to state. Pardon if I didnt communicate that properly.

>.For quantum mechanics to truly introduce an element of non-determination, very high-level states of consciousness (like decision making) would have to be determined by individual quantum level events, and I think that is rather unlikely.

I certainly was not trying to imply that quantum mechanical events caused your conciousness to have free will. There is zero evidence for that idea. I am not a Ramtha fan. :P

I was trying to say that the quantum level is one of the only places in our model of the universe that we have no idea WHY something happens, the quantum model is purely statistical at some level and provides no explanation for the observed distribution of events. Since we have no explanation then it is *not impossible* that the particles "choose" where to be, or even that the act of observing causes some higher universal consciousness to make that choice instantaneously. On the other hand it could just be that "thats how it is", or maybe its a function of the speed of light coupled with some kind of string theory equation, or any number of other possible explanations. We simply dont have any idea why the observed events follow the observed distributions so any explanation is possible. That was all I was trying to say about quantum mechanics.

One fact is certain - I AM self-aware. Somehow I have a first person experience of my own existence. Even if, as I believe is true, all of my mental processes are deterministic, I find this fact extremely profound. Why am I not simply a mindless automaton? What quality of this amalgam of matter causes this first-person experience to arise? Is it just the structure of the process my brain creates? Is there a sliding scale of less or more conscious structures\processes? Where is the breaking point if you are building or tearing down such a structure?

My answer: I think that all matter exhibits the ability to generate "conciousness" and all it takes is a process through which a "model" of an external environment can be built and sustained. You might place a measure on the class of such systems by measuring their ability to acurately model every detail of their environment. This would always be fractional of course since no model of a real environment is ever 100% acurate. The scale would range from 0 to 1, never reaching 1.

However some important points would lie on this scale. Some models would be static and unable to adapt to changes in the environment. At a higher level some models might incorporate time, and another might be able to dynamic modify itself with new data. A still higher level might incorporate a model of the modeller itself ("self") with respect to the environment. The basic idea being that, where there is meaning and structure in the data representing the environment, a better model represents more and more of this meaning and structure.

Legg and Hutter talk about a formal definition of intelligence with respect to machines, but their mechanism relies on some idea of "success" with respect to some goal the modeller is trying to achieve (www.vetta.org/documents/B...ce-Talk.pdf) I believe that intelligence\consciousness has only to do with model sophistication and that no "goal" is required in order measure it.